2 Favored mortals! raise the song;
Endless thanks to God belong;
Hearts o'erflowing with his praise
Join the hymns your voices raise.
3 Mark the wonders of his hand!
Power, no empire can withstand ;
Wisdom, angels' glorious theme;
Goodness, one eternal stream.
4 Awful Being! from thy throne
Send thy promised blessings down;
Let thy light, thy truth, thy peace,
Bid our raging passions cease.
1 FORTH from the dark and stormy sky,
Lord, to thine altar's shade we fly;
Forth from the world, its hope and fear,
Father, we seek thy shelter here:
Weary and weak, thy grace we pray;
Turn not, O Lord, thy guests away.
2 Long have we roamed in want and pain;
Long have we sought thy rest in vain ;
Wildered in doubt, in darkness lost,
Long have our souls been tempest-tost:
Low at thy feet our sins we lay;
Turn not, O Lord, thy guests away.
1 CALLED by the Sabbath bells away Unto thy holy temple, Lord,
I'll go, with willing mind, to pray,
To praise thy name, and hear thy word.
2 O sacred day of peace and joy,
Thy hours are ever dear to me;
Ne'er may a sinful thought destroy
The holy calm I find in thee.
3 Dear are thy peaceful hours to me,
For God has given them in his love,
To tell how calm, how blest, shall be
The endless day of heaven above.
The Resurrection on the First Day of the Week.
1 AGAIN the Lord of life and light
Awakes the kindling ray;
Unseals the eyelids of the morn,
And pours increasing day.
2 O what a night was that, which wrapt
The heathen world in gloom!
O what a sun, which broke, this day,
Triumphant from the tomb!
3 This day be grateful homage paid,
And loud hosannas sung;
Let gladness dwell in every heart,
And praise on every tongue.
4 Ten thousand differing lips shall join
To hail this welcome morn;
Which scatters blessings from its wings To nations yet unborn.
1 ANOTHER Six days' work is done;
Another Sabbath is begun :
Return, my soul, enjoy thy rest,
Improve the day which God hath blest.
2 O that our thoughts and thanks may rise, As grateful incense, to the skies,
And draw from heaven that sweet repose, Which none but he that feels it knows!
3 This heavenly calm within the breast
Is the dear pledge of glorious rest,
Which for the Church of God remains,
The end of cares, the end of pains.
4 In holy duties let the day
In holy pleasures-pass away:
How sweet, a Sabbath thus to spend,
In hope of one that ne'er shall end!
1 How sweet to hail the early dawn
That opens on the sight,
When first this soul-reviving morn
Beams its new rays of light!
2 Blest day! thine hours too soon will cease: Yet, while they gently roll,
Breathe, Heavenly Spirit, source of peace, A Sabbath o'er
3 Soon will my pilgrimage be done,
The world's long week be o'er,
That Sabbath dawn which needs no sun,
That day which fades no more.
1 How welcome thy returning beams,
Thou fairest morn of all the seven!
Those wake to toil, and earthly schemes;
Thou to repose, and thoughts of heaven.
2 Come, let us join the goodly throng,
And pay to God our early vow,
Repeat his praise in cheerful song,
And at his footstool humbly bow.
3 He hath revealed a blest abode,
In gospel lines divinely fair;
Come, let us seek the heavenly road,
That we may not be strangers there.
4 Then we may trust our Father's love,
That, when we 've passed these days of care,
Trained for his blissful courts above,
An endless Sabbath we shall share.
"Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day."
1 GREAT God! this sacred day of thine
Demands the soul's collected powers:
With joy to thee we now resign
These solemn, consecrated hours:
O may our souls adoring own
The grace that calls us to thy throne.
2 All-seeing God! thy piercing eye
Can every secret thought explore:
May worldly cares our bosoms fly,
And where thou art, intrude no more:
O may thy grace our spirits move,
And fix our minds on things above.
3 Thy Spirit's powerful aid impart,
And bid thy words, with life divine,
Engage the ear, and warm the heart;
Then shall the day indeed be thine;
Our souls shall then adoring own
The grace that calls us to thy throne.
1 HAIL to the Sabbath day! The day divinely given;
When men to God their homage pay, And earth draws near to heaven.
2 Lord, in this sacred hour,
Within thy courts we bend,
And bless thy love, and own thy power, Our Father and our Friend!
3 But thou art not alone
In courts by mortals trod,
Nor only is the day thine own,
When crowds adore their God.
|